Last night the geniuses from the kitchens of the Seabirds Truck and Chef Joe Youkhan’s Tasting Spoon teamed-up to celebrate the season with ‘A Taste of Spring’ all-vegan, all-amazing, four-course prix fixe dinner at Nekter Juice Bar in Costa Mesa. Using the freshest seasonal ingredients – from fava beans to artichokes to strawberries and everything in between – the menu played with every part of your palette and was a fantastic, healthy & delicious way to kick-off the long Memorial Day Weekend!

I attended the dinner with my husband, English author Tim Watson, who is the kinda’ guy who can be found standing in front of his barbeque 12 months of the year grilling large slabs of every kind of meat imaginable. The two of us are big meat-eaters. So, in my mind, this was going to be an adventure – breaking out of our shells to try something new. A vegan dinner for Tim & me. Were we going to need to stop by the In ‘n’ Out drive-thru on the way home? Hmm…. WELL, I’m happy to report that after just the first course our excitement grew. We devoured all four courses of this amazing food, to the point where if licking your plate would have been acceptable etiquette, we would have. And at the end, we were stuffed. No drive-thrus required! Dang, these chefs are good.

The dinner was hosted at Nekter Juice Bar in Costa Mesa & the lovely folks from Nekter offered a juice tasting as part of the experience. Ever had cashew milk before? Neither had I! And man, oh man, it is GOOD. I was also a huge fan of their juice called ‘The Sublime’ – accurately-named if you ask me – this tangy mix of Lime, Orange, Parsley, Kale, Spinach and Cucumber was a refreshing & invigorating addition to the menu.

Chef Joe handled courses 1 & 2, while the Seabirds were in charge of courses 3 & 4. Below, feast your eyes on the entirely-plant-based culinary magic that unfolded last night out of these two kitchens-on-wheels. And, be sure to follow both Seabirds Truck & Chef Joe Youkhan’s Tasting Spoon on Facebook & Twitter for their regular schedule updates so you can catch them on the road around Orange County!